German Film Festival New Zealand

For over a quarter of century East Germany was separated from the western world by the Berlin wall. The fall of the wall in 1989 marked the beginning of a remarkable transition: within a year, the two German states had been reunified, transforming the lives of countless people.

2009 marks twenty years since the fall of the wall. The German Film Festival will bring twenty films from the past two decades to cinemagoers in New Zealand, 19 000 kilometres away. What better way to trace the changes affecting reunified Germany than through film?

German Reunification on Film 

There can be no doubt that reunification was a boon to German filmmakers, who quarried the past for stories about people whose lives were changed by the fall of the wall. Reunification continues to be a source of inspiration for countless films such as “Goodbye, Lenin!” and “The Lives of Others”, which achieved international success at the box office with their stories of adjacent, yet faraway worlds on either side of the wall.

No city is as closely associated with the era of division than the metropolis of Berlin and no urban landscape has changed so dramatically since reunification, making the city an obvious focal point for the festival. “Focus Berlin” will feature a mix of carefully chosen movies and documentaries, taking a nuanced look at the many different faces of Germany’s dynamic capital.

The events of 9 November 1989 changed the lives of millions of Germans overnight. The fall of the wall marked a historical caesura that transformed the everyday experience of ordinary people on both sides of the wall. “Life Journeys” will bring together films that deal with living in a changed land, showing in comic, serious, and striking ways what happens when life is turned upside down.